


Strangers, Chance Met On A Train

by DaisyNinjaGirl



Category: 80 Days (Video Game 2014)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Mystery crossover, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27514984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/pseuds/DaisyNinjaGirl
Summary: As the train thrusts itself through snowy mountains, Passepartout makes acquaintance with strangers, chance met on the train.
Relationships: Vitti Jokinen/Jean Passepartout
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	Strangers, Chance Met On A Train

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thefourthvine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefourthvine/gifts).



> Dear TheFourthVine, I found out about the _80 Days_ video game from reading your prompt and then went down a bit of a rabbit hole playing it. The story that came out only fits your prompt if you squint, so it's in Madness, but hopefully it amuses. :-)

La Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits was a _fine_ company. I was travelling in wonderful style on my great journey from East to West in a delicately appointed sleeper cabin. Even second-class, the fittings were splendid. I was in one of the newer cabins, all picked out in blue and gold, a richer contrast to my debut voyage on this train, when the teak panelling had enclosed us like hidden treasure. I rather think I bored my companion as we played cards together late into the night, with my tales of former journeys. My partner, a pleasant tempered American who worked as a secretary, scoffed at me when I claimed I had completed the journey entirely around the globe.

“And how long did that take you?” he said, throwing down his hand.

“Eighty days,” I replied briefly, “if one puts one’s mind to it and has an Englishman in one’s charge. The English, as you see, are a most motivated breed.”

He shook his head and left me to my winnings. Eh bien, for an American, he did seem rather poor at playing poker.

***

At breakfast, I assisted a Russian princess, who had lost her book of meal tickets, which I helped to recover. She told me that you can get as far as Vladivostok on the TransSiberian Railway, but that it is best to acquire military papers from a government official on the way to avoid delay. I thanked her most humbly and sat with her observing the other passengers of the train. So many and so varied: I could imagine such histories to them: a fashion designer? A criminal? An actress on the boards? Who were they all, and why did they travel on this particular train on this particular snowy day through these mountains in the Balkans?

A spare woman, severely dressed with haunted eyes sat next to me for a time. She was an English governess who spoke knowledgeably of the car routes frequently used in the Middle East, and I noted them in my diary in case I should have need later. We played a game of dominoes, and discussed geology. I took careful notes on this, as well.

I spent my time after lunch chatting amiably with an American woman returning from Smyrna, who regaled me with tales of her daughter now employed by a large college in that city while she knitted. Such a proud mother. I was almost too distracted by her chatter to notice the governess slapping an army colonel. The young woman sat down with us then, and let the American matron ply her with tea and sympathy. The governess was very smooth, very polished, very self-sufficient - very English! But her pale clear complexion did nothing to hide the dark circles under her eyes. Some deep undercurrents underneath her reserve, I thought, yes, she was _very_ English. I joined in the conversation, because other people’s love affairs are always more interesting than one’s own. Another man, with the dress of that class of American labelled ‘philanthropist’ and the low carriage and bullet shaped head of a gangster, passed by our table and made a vulgar remark. The English woman and the American both bristled, and I interjected with a friendly joke. The gentleman/gangster sneered and passed on by, and I shivered, feeling as though I had escaped an encounter with a wild animal.

After the train had stopped at Sofia and returned to its western journey, I sat with another gentleman who was a director of the Wagon-Lits corporation! I plied him with fine whisky, and had an extensive discussion with him on the varying destinations of the coaches of this train. Did I want to go to Calais, Athens, or perhaps north to Zurich? I thanked him, and considered the matter thoughtfully.

At dinner, the countess, a fragile creature I thought might bat herself like a moth against the nearest flame, told me she had heard that pearls from Dubai were very highly sought after in Madras. I assisted her in laying out her clothes and repacking her trunks. La, the lady had a truly splendid red kimono, embroidered with dragons that reminded me of the hangings at the Imperial Theatre in Beijing. But she would not agree to sell it, hélas.

Walking from the wagon-lits to the dining car, the door to the outside was ajar a little, blowing frigid air into the stuffy train interior. I saw the governess and the Colonel embracing passionately on the step outside. I pretended not to notice. I am French after all!

The dining car attendant brought me a glass of cognac, and I smiled appreciatively as I set up a game of dominos. Truly, I had had many fine conversations while playing this game, and tonight I was not wrong: another of the train passengers asked to join me, and we played and drank together, as outside our train thrust itself through the mountains of Yugoslavia.

I had at first thought that the monsieur with the splendid moustache was a costumier, but at last he corrected me: he took work as a consulting detective. Belgians, what would you? He raised an elegant eyebrow but did not comment when I regaled him with the _most_ snowy adventure I had undertaken, the ice ridden sea filled with life, the stench of the whales the Pomor hunters slew for food and fuel. I shared a Gallic grin as I mentioned, delicately, the need to share warmth in order to bear the bitter cold and he smiled kindly when I told him of the friendly (and warm!) Artificer I had met on the journey, and of our unexpected rescue by air ship to the true northern pole. 

“And there I left him,” I said sadly, “expecting that I would never see him again, for his heart was a fragile bird, wounded by the failure of the Icewalker, and my master had an appointment to keep.”

“And so, m’sieur, were your expectations allied with reality.” The Great Detective leaned forward and topped up my glass of cognac, his eyes very bright.

“I have yet to see!” I replied gaily. “For here,” I held my hand to my heart and felt the reassuring crinkle of paper, “is a letter I received just six days ago from Reykjavik. A friend, an Australian who is employed as a meteorologist, has written to tell me of his aunt’s sister-in-law’s cousin who has taken a post on the island of Greenland. By name of Vitti. I am away there to see if he is _my_ Vitti. But I must be quick about it for who knows when, in his heart broken state, he might take another position; so I travel by Express as you see.

“By way of Calais, or perhaps China. Or Timbuktu?” the Belgian drawled, in speculation.

“Bien sûr!” I replied. “It is but a simple matter to a skilled traveller!”

That evening, I felt at a loss on how to occupy myself, lacking a gentleman to take care of who required exacting precision in the temperature of his shaving water, and amused myself by assisting the train conductor to polish shoes for the next morning. As we worked, the conductor showed me a delicately painted miniature of his daughter. She was very beautiful, and I asked if she had married well. "She is dead," M Michel said sadly, tucking away the picture as if he were putting a sleeping child in bed. I nodded in sympathy and patted him gently on the shoulder. Some griefs were too deep to speak of.

A little before midnight, I awoke in my second-class compartment as the swaying train suddenly ceased its motion. I scraped away the ice from the windows and peered into the darkness. The fire man of the train and one of the conductors had leaped out into the deep banks of snow and were swearing at the deep snow drift that had trapped us in pithy gutter French. One of them recounted to the other a long story about the time he had been snowed in for seven days. Seven days!

I rolled out of my bunk and repacked my bag. A modest bribe to the guard of the baggage van, and I had acquired a pair of lightly worn skis and a local guide, on our way to Zagreb. We left as the thin bluish light of dawn crept over the mountains. I spared a little thought to the Great Detective and the cast of odd, worldly travellers with whom I had spent these few days on the epitome of luxury travel, the Orient Express. As always, I was sure I was leaving behind an untold story of depth and richness in my need to cross this beautiful, mysterious, and unfathomable world as quickly as I might. What would become of them all, likely I would never know.

“À bas,” I said to myself. “True love awaits.”


End file.
